


Be With Me

by meridianline



Category: The Vampire Diaries & Related Fandoms, The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-03-14 19:57:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3423635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meridianline/pseuds/meridianline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Caroline please," he watches her pause, "Don't turn it off."</p><p>'what if Stefan had got there before Elena and let Caroline into his marshmallow heart'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be With Me

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for all the kudos on my other drabble! Haven't written fic in forever but Stefan and Caroline are so friggin' adorable I just have to. Here's another short ficlet that might hopefully help tide you over until the next episode (eek!). Bit angsty maybe but ah well!

_"Caroline? Sorry to barge in, the door was unlocked."_

* * *

 

He pushes the door behind him and steps into the hall. For the first time in a long time, he can feel his heart beating with anticipation, a crazy, insane hope blossoming inside him.

But the house is quiet and shadowed, only the light of a few lamps casting shadows up the hallway walls. The image of Caroline entering this dark, empty house alone comes to him and he moves on.

Treading gently, he reaches the living room and something eases within the nerves tightening in his chest. She's there, just across the room, in front of the television. Familiar blonde waves tumble down her back as she fiddles with a stack of DVDs. Even from here, he can see the tremor in her hands.

Suddenly he's not sure of himself. What is he supposed to say? Is this the right time to say it? But the warmth of his conversation with Damon floods back - this could be something even better - and, jamming his hands in his pockets, he takes a breath and steps fully into the room.

"Caroline?"

She stills immediately.

"Can we talk?" He wants to say it all, he doesn't want her to go one more moment without knowing that he  _cares_ , that he wants this too. But she doesn't turn around. 

"Stefan," she says finally, flatly, "Please, can we just not do this now?"

"I-" A pause. What was he thinking? She had just lost her mother and here he was, wanting to charge in with declarations of God knows what. He was an ass. "Of course, I'm- I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." 

There's no reply until, "You have nothing to be sorry for," she says, soft as a whisper, "It was all me, wasn't it?" 

He moves closer, instinctively reaching to comfort her. But before he can, she turns slowly and he realises with a jolt to his stomach that her face is blank, devoid of emotion. The heady excitement of his walk over to her house dissipates at once, leaving an icy fear in its wake.

"Caroline," her name is a plea, "Whatever you think you're about to do, please don't do it."

"Stefan," she says with a hollow smile, "I'm not going to do anything. It's alright. You don't have to be my knight in shining armour, okay? I get it. This isn't about you." 

His eyes flicker across her face, reading her the way he's always been able to. "I don't believe you."

"What?" Her voice is clipped with anger but her head tilts and her hands go to her hips, a familiar gesture. It could be any other evening he's spent with her, teasing, laughing, talking, except there's nothing in her eyes. Her movements are a mockery of her. He wants to shake her, to find his Caroline.

Instead, he gently - so carefully - takes one of her hands in both of his. 

"I believe you that this isn't about me. I believe you that you don't need me. You don't need anyone. You are stronger than anyone I know."

She tries to pull her hand from his but he holds it firm, looking steadily into her eyes.

"But don't you dare tell me that you aren't pushing everything about you, everything about who you are deep down. I know you, I can see it." 

Her hands jerks away again and this time, he lets her go. She pushes roughly past, snatching up her mother's cardigan from the couch. 

"Caroline please," he watches her pause, "Don't turn it off."

He can hear a clock tick on the mantelpiece. It was past 9 p.m. when he left the bar. Outside the window, the street is empty. The lamplight from the table in the hall seems dimmer than before. 

"Please don't turn it off." His voice cracks, fighting desperation. "Please don't. Please. I can't see you do this -- anyone but you." 

He sees her suddenly at seventeen, blood running down her face as she cried his arms in a dirty public bathroom. He remembers daylight ring sliding on her finger, the sunlight finally on her face. He can feel her wrapped tight around him as he cried on a graveyard bench over his dead brother. The touch of her hand under his as they sat together in a silent crypt. He remembers talks they had on the phone until the early hours of the morning, picking up the pieces from their latest break up, talking each other down from the ledge.

The way she was the only one who he could really make laugh. That she didn’t have to do anything but be her to make him smile.

Then, she folds the cardigan over in her hand and says simply, "It's not your choice."

"Your mom didn't want this for you." He tries, searching for anything to keep her talking, keep her fighting because one more moment spent struggling with him is one moment less that she is lost to him. "She wanted to you keep living."

She whirls around, "My mom didn't want a lot of things, Stefan. She didn't want to die. She didn't want to miss seeing me graduate from college, or never ever have a cup of coffee in the morning again or never fall asleep, never hear Joan Jett play on the radio or go outside when it's raining. My mom loved Grey's Anatomy and waking up before 6 a.m. and me. She loved me. But it doesn't really matter what she loved or what she wanted, because she's gone and I have to deal with it. So, that's what I get. I get to decide how I deal with all of this. I do. Not you." She pauses, one hand clenched in a fist around the soft grey wool of the cardigan. "And newsflash Stefan: I stopped living a long time ago."

“Okay,” his resolve strengthens within him, “So how about what I want?”

Silence. She stares at him. He can hear her heartbeat. He can feel it in his very bones.

“Why are you here Stefan?”

“I-” He starts but she just shakes her head.

“Stop trying to save me. You’re forgiven okay? You’re off the hook. You don’t owe me anything –- _we_ aren’t anything.”

“And what if I want us to be something? What about then?”

She swallows. Her eyes flickering away. She looks back to him from under her lashes and at last, there’s a glimmer of that small blonde girl who never wanted die, who rode away from her mother into the sunset and fell down and got back up again.

“I know what you want Stefan. And it’s not me. We both know that. So please- “

He’s back at the bar, smiling at his brother because he’s just realised he has found the best goddamn thing in his whole godforsaken life. It’s now or never.

“It’s you. I want you. I want to _be with you_.”

“No, you don’t.” There's no question there. 

“Yes, yes I do.” He steps forward in earnest. “I’m so sorry I didn’t say anything earlier. I’m so sorry it’s taken me this long to realise. It’s just -”

He stops, searching for the right words.

“I’ve spent my whole life thinking love was something that had to hurt for it to be worth it. I thought that true love was epic and painful and bigger than the entire universe. But it’s not. It is so much better than that. God, Caroline, it’s us.”

He can feel it, humming in his veins as he lays all his cards on the table, “It’s everything you are to me – you make me laugh, you make me want to keep living, I enjoy life when I’m with you, you make me happy. I want to make _you_ happy. Sit with you if you’re sad. Hear your voice every single day, tell you every secret I’ve ever kept... to just watch you smile." He exhales roughly. "We would be _so_ good together Caroline, so good to each other.”

She crosses her arms around her, protectively, eyes are filled with tears. Slowly, slowly she shakes her head.

“You don't mean that.” Her voice wavers as she dips her chin. “You're just saying what you think I want you to say."

“Caroline,” his hands are on her cheeks, soft, comforting, "Look at me, look at me." An echo of another time. 

Her eyes are watery, unsure. But to his immeasurable relief, it's still her. The stirrings of hope he'd felt when he'd stepped through the doorway what seemed like a lifetime ago return. 

"Trust me. Whatever this is between us, it's real. For both of us." 

He doesn't wait for her response. Instead, tenderly cradling her face, he lowers his lips to hers. Hesitates. Then kisses her bottom lip, slowly and then with more urgency, feeling a surge of relief as she begins to respond. He teases her mouth gently open, slipping his tongue lightly inside. His fingers move to tangle themselves in her curls, feeling their soft weight beneath his hands as he had on the porch step, what seemed like a lifetime ago. 

A warm weight settles in his gut as he places a final kiss on her forehead. She sways slightly, and they slide back into place so easily it feels like this is something they never let go. He wonders if this was always on the edges of their friendship, just a touch away from their hugs, just an arms-length away that time they lay there together in the back of that car. 

She smiles faintly, absently reaching to straighten his collar. "You have the  _worst_ timing." 

"Yeah, it's never really been my strong-suit." He chuckles shakily under his breath, and she laughs in reply, tucking herself into him. His arms immediately wrap themselves around her and for the second time that night, he feels something unlock in his chest. 

They stand there a moment, the lamplight outside filling the room with a subdued glow. He presses a kiss into her hair and tightens his hold. 

"If you break my heart, I will kill you," she mumbles against his chest. 

"Not if you break mine first." 

She lifts her head a fraction, enough to look at him, his arms still tight around her. "So, I was going to spend tonight crying on the couch over season 5 of Friends..." 

He raised his eyebrows. 

"Yes Stefan, we are going to leave the whole almost turning-off-my-humanity-switch conversation for another day."

"Got it." He nods, happy to just have her here in his arms. "Can I stay if I make the tea?" 

With a watery smile, she raises herself on her tiptoes to press a quick kiss to his lips. Then pushes him out the room, towards the kitchen. "Peppermint with --"

"One sugar, I know, I know." As he turns, he risks one quick glance back towards her, standing alone in the living room. She's still clutching that grey cardigan, but a small smiles graces her lips. She shakes herself from her thoughts and goes to pop the DVD in the player.

He thinks of seeing her like this on every dusky evening for the rest of his days. She's not anywhere near fine and she's so far from okay but she is here and she's with him and it feels like the start of something.


End file.
